


Nightmare's Bite

by SarcasmFish (Alcyonidae)



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmare, adorable children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 15:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10833882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyonidae/pseuds/SarcasmFish
Summary: The Warden finds herself in the midst of a rather violent archdemon dream.  When she wakes it's Alistair she turns to for comfort.





	Nightmare's Bite

She stood at the peak of a steep valley, peering down below her.  Masses of Darkspawn swirled below and filled every space between the two walls.  Even the sides of the cliff seemed to writhe with them.  They lined the bare rocks like fur on the back of a Mabari.  Some even attempted to scale the precarious rocks around them.

Despite better sense she found herself creeping closer to the edge, drawn by some unseen force.  Down in the middle of the horde she could make out something different, something not rotting and seething with the Blight.  It glinted with clean steel.  The sun above her was dying, orange and weak, but she could make out a shield.  Alistair.  With widening eyes she began to notice the distinct color of his hair, the blue and white gryphon pattern sprawling across the face of his shield, and the familiar movements of his sword.

There were hundreds of Darkspawn pressing in on him.  They reached for him, pawed at him with oily hands, their claws marring his armor.  They pushed and thrashed against him, pinning his sword and shield against his body where they became useless no matter the effort and strength he poured into repelling them back.  They were pressed so thick he was struggling just to lift his sword and shield to defend himself.

She threw out her hand to cast a barrier over him, but nothing happened.  She struggled to find the thread of magic within her but it was dark and full of droning whispers.  The longer she searched, the louder the whispers grew, the more pressing and urgent they became.  They called to her, coaxed her, bid her come closer.  They lulled and sang and made promises like demons across the Veil.

She shook the thoughts away.  Alistair fought on below her, disappearing a moment as the Darkspawn surged against him.

There was a ledge that wound its way down into the valley.  It was narrow with few handholds, but was the only way to traverse down short of falling.  She scrambled to reach him, to be of some help.

The path was dangerous, the cliff face crumbling and corroding beneath her as she stepped with as much haste as the treacherous ground would allow.  It was hundreds of feet to the bottom.  Rocks splintered beneath her feet, making her slip and fall in her urgency to descend down to where the Warden fought.  She caught herself on bloodying hands and knees, but pushed herself up and forward each time.

Above her a shadow darkened the sky.  A great dragon soared over the opening in the valley, blotting out the sky above and casting a cold shadow over everything below.  It was not the dragon of fairy tales, with gleaming green and iridescent scales, but a dragon of nightmare.  The creature was mostly bone and where skin remained it was leathery and peeled away like armor that had seen too much sun.  Beneath lay rotting bones that protruded in unnatural ways.  The whole beast seemed held together by cottony webs, sticky puss, and perverse shadows that shimmied under her gaze.

There were hundreds of Darkspawn below, but she felt the beast’s eyes fall upon her alone.  It roared and she felt her teeth clatter together.  It roared again and she felt her bones answer, traitors within her own skin.

The dragon folded its wings against its body and descended into a steep dive.  It was headed for Alistair.  He was so busy fending off the Darkspawn around him he had not noticed the dragon above.  She screamed his name; screamed for him to run, but the dragons cry blotted out her voice.

She reached for her magic again, searched for any tiny thread of it within herself that might be hidden away.  Instead of magic she found the hum of the Darkspawn below her again.  The screeching and buzzing became almost melodic the longer she listened.  The clamor and clatter soared and pulsed like the finest Chantry choir.  The melody of their hive grew so loud it was all she could hear.

The dragon flattened out its dive as it reached the bottom, on steady course for her companion.  Its great jaws opened, gaping and endless.  Steaming green ichor dripped off its broken teeth.  She screamed out for Alistair again, begging him to look up, tears blotting her eyes. 

The dragon landed, shaking the ground and nearly sending her tumbling forward into the crevasse.  It lunged at Alistair, taking up a mouthful of Darkspawn with him and snapped its teeth shut, dropping her into a fog of darkness.

The darkness was a welcome.

Something was pulling at her.  Darkspawn?  Had they come to drag her down to be the dragon’s dessert?  She struggled to push the hands away, to pry them away from her skin, but she felt so weak.  There were voices around her, familiar, but frantic.  They pleaded and implored and overlapped so she could not make out their source.

The hands were shaking her now, trying to shake her loose. 

“Perhaps we need something more extreme.  Cold water?  I’ve woken several drunk comrades with a sharp slap.  Could that work?”  The voice was familiar, but she could not wade through the fog to locate its owner.

“No!”  She could hear someone begging.  “Don’t hurt her!”  That voice, so full of worry, it pulled and tugged at her.  It cleared away the clouds and mire that held her within nightmare’s bite.  That voice she recognized.  Alistair?  He was alive!  The haze in her mind lifted.

She threw her eyes open, gasping and reaching for her bearings.  She was in camp.  The fire had burned itself down to only embers.  There was someone holding onto her shoulders, keeping her from launching herself onto her feet.  She fought it a moment, eager to get her legs beneath her, but her body was so tired, so fatigued she was stalled with little effort.

Wynne knelt next to her, offering a soothing hand that smoothed the ruffled hair back from her sweat slicked face.  “There you are, Astaria.  We were worried.”

She stared at Wynne a moment, eyes wide and panicked, before searching around her with frantic fear. 

Alistair sat beside her, it was his arm that sat across her shoulders supporting her trembling form.  His eyes were wet and full of worry.  He opened his mouth to say something, something clever, something sweet perhaps, but she threw her arms around him before he could speak.  He accepted her without question.  His arms wound around her and drew her close, nearly knocking the air from her with the sudden force of it.

She wanted to explain, wanted to tell him and warn him about what she had seen, but each time she tried it only came out as choked sobs.  Maker, she was a mess.  The most she could make out was a repeating, incoherent question asking if he was alright.

Alistair held her in a fierce embrace, grip almost painful.  He was murmuring soft things into her hair she could not quite make out.  She gave in, burying her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder and let herself break.  He kept her close, his warmth and strength a comfort she could not measure.

It had been so real.  Never in her life had a dream felt so real.  She had sat by and watched, helpless, as that great demon had snatched her friend alive.  The images replayed in her mind over and over, little flashes that she knew would haunt even her waking hours for days to come.  She gripped the back of Alistair’s shirt, clenching her eyes shut to try and blot them out.  He was still mumbling to her, rocking her back and forth in a gentle rhythm.  Alistair was never very good at remaining quiet and she was thankful for it now.  His voice reminded her that he was alive, that what she had seen had been just an awful dream.  He was still there, whole and healthy.

Her sobs dwindled to sniffles and she relented the clawed grip she had maintained.

Alistair did not let go.  He had not seemed to notice that the tears that had shook her had subsided into only tremors.  She could make out more of what he was saying now that she was calmer.  It was a rambling litany of assurances that he was fine, of how worried he had been, and for some reason it included how sorry he was.  What did he have to be sorry for?

“Alistair…” she finally whispered, voice cracking from abuse.

He gave a great suffering sniffle of his own and let her pull back, just enough to look up at him and meet his eyes.  She noticed her other companions had retreated to their own beds again.

“You called for me,” he whispered, shame creeping into his voice.  “You called my name and I couldn’t wake you.  I couldn’t help you.”

That time she had screamed for him to run, it must have been out loud.  Was that why he had been apologizing?  She shook her head, gripping his arms, frantic to make him understand that it was not his fault.  “It was… there was a dragon.  The archdemon.”

He nodded, eyes filling with understanding.  “I saw it, too.  A Warden dream.”

“I saw you... you were in a valley with so many Darkspawn and I couldn’t reach you,” she was blubbering, words stringing and tripping over each other, calling up new tears to her still damp eyes.  “There were so many.  My magic wouldn’t work and the archdemon came.  It came down and… and it…”  She dropped her gaze, unable to face him, and shook her head, frustrated with her inability to explain, haunted by the memories of the dream.  The images were still so fresh in her mind, but she struggled to form the horror into words.

He pulled her back into another crushing embrace.  “I’m alright.  No teeth marks.”  He was struggling to add a hint of playfulness into his voice.

She sat back again, swiping her forearm across her eyes, fighting for composure.  He gave her an encouraging smile.  She nodded, slow and more sure.  “It was just… so real.”

He reached out to push some of her hair back behind a pointed ear.  The action surprised her and she almost pulled away from him.  It was not something she would have ever let anyone else do, but Alistair, the way he was looking at her right now...

She dropped her eyes again.  Her emotions were still tumbling.  She could not let him see them play out in her eyes.

The fire had died to only a glow and she found herself shivering now that the adrenaline wore down.  Alistair rubbed his hands over her upper arms to bring some warmth back and she could not restrain herself from peeking up at him. 

There was a playful little smile beginning to draw at his lips, a hint of the usual Alistair.  “You know, I don’t think I’d taste very good to a dragon.  I hear bastards are rather gamey.”

“What about elves?” she asked in a small voice.

“Oh, elves taste even worse.”  He nodded, sage like and wise.  “Like… like mabari feet.”

“Mabari feet?”  She tried to sound indignant.  It coaxed some of a smile to her lips and she was glad to return to their comfortable banter.

“Mabari feet that haven’t been washed since the Blessed Age.”  He spoke as if he held the authority of knowledge everyone knew.

He gave her a wink and then stood, adding firewood to the dying fire.  The embers began to catch the logs alight and the warmth crept toward her.  She arranged the tangle of blankets and pulled them over herself.

Alistair was watching her, the former humor gone from his face, replaced now with some expression she could not read.  He rubbed at his shoulder, thoughts flickering over his eyes and the furrow of his brow, before seeming to make some important decision.  He crossed to his bedroll and pulled it over, dropping it not more than a foot from her own.

“There.”  His smile had slipped into something quite sincere, tone softening.  “If you wake up and you’re unsure if I’m alive or not, you can just reach over and slap me.”  His voice held a hesitant quality to it.  He was waiting for her to send him away. 

She curled up beneath her blankets, laying out on her side facing him. When she did not reprimand him or shoo him away he laid down opposite of her, setting his sword beside him.  She snaked an arm out from beneath her blankets to touch his arm, checking the distance.

“You just gave me permission to slap you.”

“Hmm, blast.  You’re right.  I did,” he whispered.

Her eyes felt swollen and dry.  Despite the terror that still loomed behind her lids, she felt them slip closed. 

“Goodnight, mabari feet.”

“Goodnight, Alistair.”

 

The morning crested over the trees and lit the fog in a welcoming glow.  Alistair woke before the rest of the camp.  His muscles were sore, but they had been sore since leaving Ostagar and no longer gave him notice.  He rolled over to check on his fellow Warden.  She was curled beneath the blankets, like a cat, tufts of hair standing out in awkward angles revealing the elegant slant of an ear commonly hidden in daylight.  Her eyes were still dark and puffy from the night before.  Ugly tracks of tears lay dried upon her cheeks.  For now, though, she looked peaceful, lips slightly parted and hands resting curled beneath her chin.  Some wistful part of him wanted to acknowledge that she looked rather adorable asleep like that.  And some desperate part of him begged to reach out and hold her again, as he had last night.  Desperate and stupid.

He rose from the unforgiving ground and stretched.  Something popped in his back.  He deposited his cache of blankets over the sleeping form beside him, slow and gentle as to not rouse her.  She sighed and curled up even tighter, head disappearing beneath the covers, leaving just a few locks of hair as clues that the only other Warden in Thedas was hidden below.

Alistair set himself to work packing up camp.  He coaxed the fire back into life to be ready for breakfast, then broke down his and Astaria’s tents, stowing their belongings back into the appropriate bags.  By the time their other companions crept yawning from tents and blankets he was ready to begin breakfast.

Leliana regarded him with a curious eyebrow, but otherwise said nothing.

Morrigan crossed into camp from her smaller one, tying her bedroll to the bottom of her bag with skilled fingers.  She paused as she neared the slumbering woman near the fire, reaching down to the Warden’s shoulder.  Alistair intercepted her, reaching out to stay her hand.  Morrigan shot him a lurid look, admonishments rising to her lips.  He lifted a finger to his own and shook his head.  Where he might joke and insult his eyes now implored her silence.

“Just give her a few more minutes,” he pleaded.

She stared at him a heated moment before nodding and withdrawing her hand.

Alistair finished up the few remaining things needed to pack up and then made up two plates of heaping breakfast.  He returned to the last sleeping member of their group.  She was still coiled beneath the blankets.  He reached down to touch her shoulder.

“Astaria?” he called out, keeping his voice low to not startle her.  She rolled over onto her back, squinting her eyes shut with a tired whimper that tore into his chest as sure and piercing as a dagger between plates of armor.

The usual clamor of camp caught up with her and she sat up, blinking bleary eyes at the morning halo.

“I overslept?”

Alistair plopped himself beside her and shoved the plate into her hands.  He did not wait for her and began eating, shoveling large bites into his mouth.

“It’s ok,” he replied around a mouthful of eggs.  “Everything’s ready to go.”

She turned to stare at him, a slice of toasted bread halfway to her lips.  She knew.  She somehow knew what he had done that morning.  Would she chide him?  Would she see the gesture as an insult?

“Thank you.”  It was a soft response, unsure, unusual for their leader.  But it was genuine and the emotion in her eyes made it hard for him to chew his food without biting his tongue.

He felt like something passed between them at that moment.  Some shared understanding, some promise.  He could not put a name to it or explain it, but it was time for him to take a closer look at the feelings he had been so diligent in stowing away.  The blossom tucked safe and secure in his bag sang to him.  Suddenly instead of terror it filled him with excitement.

But now was not the time.  He gave her a knowing wink and flashed a charming smile before digging back into his plate.  But soon.


End file.
